Lower Lee Valley Canal

Stonebridge Lock car park

A good distance to central London (10 miles) or to Westfield Stratford (5.5 miles) when cycling with the kids. Close to Ikea Edmunton and Tottenham's White Hart Lane which could be problematic on matchday. The free car park shuts at 1930.

Roughly 20km round trip if only I can reliably resume recording after every intermediate stops:)



Westfield Stratford/Olympic Park

Now West Ham football stadium so another potential headache on matchday. But a good playground for kids with fun two-tier climbing wall.

The whole journey can be completed traffic free. And the canal towpath isn't too busy and quite scenic. The surface is in good condition overall, unlike the upper Lee Valley part which can be a bit rocky and bumpy.

Brecon Beacons 2 day loops

My first mountain biking trip and I am really glad to have completed it. I wouldn't have lasted a third day! I was quite apprehensive before trying to envisage the gradient and cycle routes etc while planning but I ended up doing a bit more than I planned even, as adrenalin took over, you just want to go further. Except that I am aware it was not to be A-to-B cycling and hard climbs must follow fast descents and every journey forward has to be a round trip to get back to the car. The only worry was I felt cramps coming when climbing the second day. I must be beginner cyclist because I used 25 out of the 27 gears and still spent a lot of time standing up for climbs!

View from top of the Gap - (from left) Pen y Fan, Cribyn, Fan y Big

Taff Trail

Things went exactly as planned on both days as far as weather and parking near the starting point are concerned. Having a full warm cooked breakfast each morning isn’t my usual routine but it sustained me for the 5 hour trek on both occasions. I was particularly fortunate to find free car parking right at the start of the Brecon canal towpath.

What I now learned is that most of the trail can be completed on hard tarmac on a road bike. Some of the signposted scenic "forest" trails are not strictly necessary even though they are traqffic free and offer slendid views. The alternative is generally to use the A roads. 

Most of the cycling follows the well signposted Taff Trail starting at Merthyr Tydfil. I first visited the Cyfarthfa Castle which at the time of writing still offer free parking plus children's waterpark for free. I parked fairly close to the Cefn-Coed viaduct to start my journey. 

From there to the Ponsticill Reservoir is hard pack traffic free trail. Follow a short stint on the main roads to and across the southern end of the reservoir and the trail points you north west into the Taf Fechan Forest trail - which I avoided on the way back.

Upper Neuadd Reservoir

Once you reached the Taf Fechan forest car park, instead of heading straight for the Gap, I took a (dead end) detour to check out the imposing looking Upper Neuadd Reservoir tower which was almost dry. The journey to the Gap I'd say was technical mountain biking. You just have to pay full attention to the horrible surface littered with large rocks. This part I'd say is very crowded by comparison as there are 10 times more hikers than bikers.


Waterfalls

One of the attraction of the Brecon Beacons is the many waterfalls in the area. Most of the ones I know seem to concentrate on either side of Torpantau. On first day, it's nice to come across a small one just off the main road opposite the Taf Fechan Forest Car Park after I had given up trying exhausted from climbing the Gap.

And I was determined to get to one after spotting it while climbing on the other side of the valley.

And I'm lucky to have the right bike (read $lightest$) for the trip as I had to carry it most of the way (down) when visiting Blaen y Glyn waterfalls. Hardtail (i.e. only front suspension) is perfect for me because I'm rarely seated on bumpy and downhill parts. Either that or my saddle fits me well coz saddle sore is non-issue compare to other pains:)

Overall the weather was perfect apart of a little strong headwind while climbing Talybont and Torpantau but things do even out when you do loops. On another trip, and if I did not get free accomodation, I would do Merthyr Tydfil to Brecon on the eastern route and come back via the Gap over two days, spending a night in Brecon or Talybond on Usk.

Of memorable view, two stands out. Firstly is the imposing Upper Neuadd Reservoir tower overlooking the almost dry reservoir.

Secondly is the Blaen y Glyn waterfalls which is both visible and audible from the Talybont eastern climb.

I'm testing all this different apps/website and so far Strava impresses me the most for recording while Bikemap is useful on the go and while planning. As you can see, I used them once each in the two days.Or even climbing on the A4059 which is popular with roadies.

But a word of warning, there is no mobile coverage especiallt south of the Gap and Torpantau. In fact I had to cycle to the top of the Gap just to get signals, presumably from the Brecon side.

Bikemap - Day 1 - Merthyr Tydfil to the Gap and back

Bikemap is useful for planning and when riding mainly because of it's heatmap which gives you some idea which path is popular/rideable and map gradient. But once I ended up a bit lost in the woods and trespassed in an unused railway line (now private land with no right of way?).

 

Strava - Day 2 - Brecon to Torpantau Station and back
 
Strava like a facebook + GPS + analysis all in one - basically putting some effort into presenting your log into useful info. Sounds simple but quite enjoyable. Cross referencing people cycling you cross path with in a virtual playback is cool yet disconcerting. 

 

App Comparison

On the iPhone app at least, Bikemap shows gradient lines on the map whereas Strava only seems to show them in the full desktop site. Alas Bikemap app kept reverting to the starting page, losing the displayed map when I wasn't using it for GPS recording which I thought was annoying given the poor to non-existant mobile coverage in the Brecon Beacons. But I find its heatmap very useful in the field.

As a guest I think you can hover your mouse to see the elevation on both. Strava website has extra Analysis section which gives you extra gradient and speed info which Bikemap does not provide. As usual you wish there were one that combines both.

Grand Union Canal at Batchworth, Rickmansworth

Drove to Rickmansworth and parked by Church Street on a Sunday noon. Walked the steps down to Batchworth Canal Centre and was fortunate to have a canal boat trip waiting to leave. Went inside to find that the centre is just a shop and education tours are by special arrangement only. By the time the kids finished browsing canal boat models on sale, the boat had left. Not another one till 3:30pm.

So we decided to take the bike and start at the canal center. The initial plan was to cycle from midway till the Colne Valley Visitor Center some 6 miles South.

The Grand Union Canal is slightly more lively than River Cam to Cambridge. There are canal boats selling arts and books and some pretty large modern ones moored. One mile in, I realised Wen-Shan were not going to make the round trip. By the time I took a detour to picnic by picturesque Stocker's Lake and missing the turn and ended up north of the lake, it was clear that we would end the cycling early and go on a canal boat trip instead.

The "Pride of Batchworth" goes from Batchworth Lock to Stockers Lock which happened to be the same points we have just cycled. The price is reasonable but there is no interaction except the well detailed route map.

Richmond Park and Wimbeldon Common

One park is not enough. A combined "figure of 8" loop is actually 10 mile. The weather was not great and it actually showered as we were at the far end of the loop by Petersham Gate but luckily Richmond Park has plenty of big trees to shelter.

This is the plan...

We parked by Wimbeldon Common Windmill. The car park is quite big and free. I really like the forest like park with tree roots and streams. The cycle paths go along the golf course and horse tracks which means some parts were a bit too sandy to cycle for the kids.

We exited Wimbeldon Common by the A3 main road and cycled along the pavement (legally) till the Robin Hood Gate by Stag Lodge Stables. Cycling paths in Richmond Park are flatter and mostly traffic free. The shared roads are mostly safe as cars do slow down and polite in line with the nature of the semi enclosed park.

I was determined to find some deer for the kids. So we took some detour away from the main cycle paths. From there, we cycled towards Pond and Queen Elizabeth's Plantation and by the time we are lost trying to find a route through the gated Pembroke Lodge on Queen's Road towards the playground by Petersham Gate, the kids have thrown in the towel. Some off track walk and downhill excitement later, the kids were surprisingly recharged and we finally reached the park.

We had a picnic and they really enjoyed the model train and aeroplane as they watched every passenger plane en-route to Heathrow passes overhead, memorising each carrier flag design.

For cycling. every road that goes down (yee-ha!) must climb back up:( The shower came as we were half way up the hill eastwards towards Queen's Road and provided a timely rest to catch our breath.

We actually saw the most deer along Sawyer's Hill by Isabella Plantation. The route back was mainly on traffic free roads.